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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1928-06-07, Page 3Survey Shows Birds' Service to Agriculture Many Species Falsely Accused of Hurting Crops, Fed- eral Bureau Finds Insects Principal Food Destruction of Weed Seeds is Another Useful,. Habit 'Whether birds are, useful or Injuri- ous to crops depends upon what they eat. Many birds are accused of eat- ing or destroying this or that crop when in reality the accusation is un- founded. Because of this the Bureau of Biological Survey of the U.S. De- partment of Agriculture, says "The Pathfinder," has spent many years in a rlystematic investigation of the food of those species which are most com- mon about the farm and garden. Within certain limits, says this au- thority, birds eat the kind -of •of food that is most accessible, especially when their natural foods are scarce. The investigation revealed that the great majority of land birds subsist upon insects during the period of nest- ing and molting, and also feed their yiung upon then du,}'ing the first few weeks. Many species were found to live almost entirely upon insects, tak- ing vegetable food only when the former were not obtainable, Because of this it is difficult'to estimate the value of birds to the farmer in re- straining the great. tide of insect life. Another useful function .of birds Is the destroying of weed seeds. In winter when insects become scarce the birds turn to vegetable food such as seeds of weeds. One of the most familiar and wel- come of our feathered visitors is the bluebird. It is one of the earliest northern migrants, and everywhere is hailed as a harbinger of spring. So far as known the bluebird has never been accused of stealing fruit or of preying upon crops. Nearly 70 per cent. of its food consists of insects and their allies, while over 30 per &nt, is made up of various vegetable substances. But so far as vegetable food is concerned the bluebird is posi- tively harmless. The western species ' cit this bird is even more commend- able In its food habits than its east- ern relative. Robin Pays Its Way Itt mrt• parts of the country the robin is one of the moat cherished of our birds. It is found throughout the 'United Slates, far north through Can- ada and even in Alaska. 'rhe robin i� ae omnivorous feeder and its fool 1 abits cainetimes cause appre- lieneiun to fruit growers. It is fond of cherries and other •small fruits, But examination of over a thousand stomachs showed that more than 42 l er /lent. of its food is animal .matter, priucipally insects, while the remaind- er is trade up largely of small fruits, mostly wild. Although robins take a small amount. •of cultivated fruits, it must be remembered that they are a ureteral enemy of the trisect world, and that they work 'during the whole tea -en to make the crops possible. Tee when the fruit -ripening period ccn es they already have a standing acet•'.ntt with the farmer for services rend: eel. Accenting to a departineut bulletin the very character of the food of birds of the titmice family gives a peculiar value to their services to the farmer. It is in the winter season that titmice do their greatest work. .When there are no insects. flying or cra\vilug about these birds must feed upon such species as they find hiber- nating in crevices or upon the eggs of Inset laid in similar places. There are soave seventeen species of titmice in thin country and as many sub- species. Near,. 70 per cent, of their fond consists of animal. matter. The former is made up of small caterpil- lars aucl moths and their eggs. Tit- mice are known as chickadees. Ex- amination xamination of the stomeahs of these birds revealed tlipt they -contained in- jurious insects to the' extent of over. l0 per cent. The vegetable food of this, species seems to consist most of broken up seeds. House Wren Friend of Farmer The fond habitis of the dtmluutive house wren are entirely beneficial to the farmer. They live priucipaily upon animal food. -98 per cent. insects and their allies and only 2 per cent. vege- table matter. The house wren is only one of a numerous group of birds of similar habits. International Finance London Referee (Cons.) : There will soon be no one in control at Credit: who is not also an international ftnaneier, Are international Finan- eters desirable custodians of bbe fate of nations? Will their activities tend to world peace or to world Warr? Ob. Serve how two groups of them love one another when they fall` utt Ob - Serve their callousness totivards corn- mltnities when they work togothert Immigration London Metering Post (Cone.): Canada moves more slowly than the %United States becanee she has a smaller pen ttlatiott, If she desires to take her share in the deve•lopinent Of the Continent, it is a little d(fiioult to sea why alto follows her present policy of restricting itumigratiob frona Che Mother Country, F resew British Industrial Revival American Magnate Declares Will ill . Be British and Not American New 'Rork.—Through business meth- pds that -will • be British and not American, the British Empire, within the next 20 years, will experience the greatest •industrial renaissance of modern history. This was the opinon expressed in New York by Robert W. Johnson, American industrialist and vice-president of Johnson & John- son., New •Brunswick, N,J., on his re- turn from Europe, ' `'`s'My tour of English industrial cities and my conversations with British in- dustrialists and Parliament members of the younger generation confirm a conclusion to which I had been moved by eight years' study of world markets for American business," said John- son. "I am convinced that Great Britain is to experience.the greatest industrial revival of modern history. I feel equally certain that the methods by which this renaissance is to be brought about will be typically English and not adaptations of practices learn- ed `in America or any other country.. Records of ritish Members Is Sought London', n undertaking promis- ing the collection of vast, hitherto un- tapped sources of information for all whose ancestors have taken part in the British political life of past gen- erations is promised by the project to which 200• members of the House of Commons have now signed a me- morial in support.' It is for the Gov- ernment to appoint a committee to prepare a complete record of mem- bers of Parliament from 1264 to 1832, describing their personalities, politi- 1 cal views and elections. ' 11 Col. Josiah Wedgewood has already collected the particulars for the Staf- fordshire members. Sir Martin Con- way, Sir Charles Oman, John Buchan and Sir Robert Hamilton are also co- operating. Scots Australians Tour Industrial • - To; rns in Britain Plymouth, Eng.—Six hundred Scot- tish Australians have arrived here for I a tour of British industrial towns. Every. one is of Caledonian descent, land the tour will end in Scotland after j visits to Exeter, Salisbury, London, York, Newcastle and Scottish towns finishing in Inverness. Each indi- vidual selected has been successful in his particular calling. Sugar, 'cotton and fruit growers from Queensland, wheat farmers from South and Western Australia, Victoria wool farriers, wool manufacturers, cattlemen, timber merchants, fish canners, iron and steel masters from the big cities are mixed with bank- ers, merchants and industrial sales= men. The object of the visit is to bring similar types of business man in the British Isles into contact for their mutual benefit. It is also felt that actual testimony from those who have succeeded will do much to dispel misgivings among possible intending emigrants. Over -Fifty Minerals Being Produced A notable feature of the progress of the Dominion as a mining country is the diversity of lines along which. Can- adian mining has advanced. Some fifty different minerals, .metallic and nonmetallic, are listed in the produc- tion roducttion figures for 1926, and this number includes a variety such as nickel, cobalt, asbestos, gold, lead, silver, copper, and zine, in which Canada either leads world production or ranks among the greater producing nations. Nova Scotia's Salt Deposits In Nova Scotia many attempts had been made to turn to commercial use some of the numerous salt springs found in various parts of the province, but until the discovery of valuable salt beds near Malagash, in Cumber- land county, no important salt in- dustry had been developed. Since 1919 there has been au important and growing production of rockesalt from the Malagash mine, which finds a ready market especially in the fish - curing industry of the Maritimes and of Newfoundland, Call on 35 Meters Comes Out of North Montreal, Que.--isolated in a far north mission, with radio as his only contact With the outside, Father L: Ducharme is anxious to get into communication with ama- teurs on 85 metres, In a latter written April 10 at the Roman Catholic Mission at Chester- tleld Inlet, far up on the west coast of Hudson :Day, Father Ducharzne says that he has called repeatedly oil the short wave lengths but could get no response. Ile adds that he plans to come on the air each Satur- day 'night- just as 'ICDKA, Pitts burgh, signs off in tho hope of getting a contaot Doubly Re,, Laic Finish Barque Below is Jennie Day, 24, an artist, who was a stowaway discovered on the shop nearly starved. Grand Banks Ice Patrol Is " vied by COMM Gabbett Coast Guard Cutter Mojave Arrives at Halifax; Dail" Broadcast' Is Made Halifax, N,S.—The work orf the international ice patrol this season was reviewed by Commander Cecil M. Gabbett, of the United States .Cast Guard cutter Mojave, when the vessel put in here after its second tour M duty on the, Grand Banks. It was the first time that the Mojave, which alternates on patrol with the cutter Medoc at fortnightly intervals, had called here. Commander Gabbett re- ported that weather ,conditions, on the whole, had been excellent since the patron was begun in March, although during the Mojave's second tour five days of continuous fog •were encount- ered. The •Mojave, like the Modoc, is elec- trically driven, and is one of the few vessels of that type afloat. The ship is equipped with every modern aid to navigation, including a fathometer which tells the depth of water under the vessel by means of sound waves, The radio equipment permits tram. - mission of mesasges over a radius of 2,000 miles, and daily reports are sent to Washington. On her present cruise the Mojave transmitted a total of 70,000 words by radio. Four broad- casts are sent out daily to inform steamers of the position of icebergs south and east of the Grand Banks, and steamers in communication with the cutter are requested to report the position and description of any other bergs sighted. These are carefully plotted on a chart and a complete record is kept of the movement of the bergs until they melt or drift out of the trans-Atlantic steamship lanes. From the glaciers in the far north about 500 icebergs drift down into the steamship lanes during a normal sea- son, but last year only 350 bergs were reported as a result of the coal wea- ther. It was one of these mountains of ice into which the steamship Ti- tanic crashed to sink with a loss of 1,500 lives in April, 1912. It was as, a result of that disaster that the inter- national ice patrol was established byi the United States under an agreement with several other nations. As an; example of the work of the patrol, Commander Gabbett reported that on the present cruise the cutter received a wireless message from a large pas -1 senger liner that she was in a dense fog and asking if any icebergs were near by.' The steamer gave her posi- tion and speed. and by referring, to their charts the Mojave officers were able to give warnin r that the stearnez WON 14,000 -MILE RACE was in danger of colliding, with a large Hergoziu Cecilie reached Cardiff 96 days out of Australia. course, and the danger was thu, averted. The Mojave and the Modoc will re- main on patrol until the iceberg men- ace has peeped,. During the patrol the morale of the 110 members of the crew is kept at a high point by frequent exhibition of motion pictures and other entertainment, and when the cutter is in her home port at Boston dances are conducted weekly aboard the vessel Ontario's Mentes Show Progress. Hon. Charles McCrea is Op- timistic of Canada's' Min- eral Future Ottawa.—During the first three months of this year the value of mineral output of this province had exceeded the corresponding months last year by $1, 250,000, Hon. Charles McCrea, Provincial Minister of Mines, recently said. "Within the next 25 years Canada, and especially Ontario, will have reached a degree of pros- perity beyond the bounds of realiza- tion at the present time," he said. "We are only beginning to raise the curtain upon the vast mineral re- sources which lie beneath the great pre -Cambrian shield of the earth. And fully 95 per cent. of these resources lie wholly within Canada," he said. He then went on to speak of the pre - Cambrian layer of the earth's crust as the greatest mineral bearing stratum known to exist in the entire world. • He told of properties lying in the Province of Manitoba which contain $600,000,000 worth of minerals, wliich await the spade of the miner. The American Move London Times (Incl.) : The United States is for the first time for years entering upon an international negoti- ations. That le all the greater res. son why the British Government should strongly support this initiative. Canada Boys Win Cup in Shoot London.—Canada won the King's Special Challenge Trophy for 1927 In the miniature rifle shooting com- petition for boys of the British 1'ntpire. Canada's average for 3,000 boys who competed was 79.2 points out of a possible 100. ADAMSON'S ADVENTURES—By O. Jacobsson. 5;'y /LL Give , . Voir 4 DOLL Ai? FOR niAT F15W . Amundsen Bid To Aid Recalls Nobile Feud • Veteran Explorer of Arctic Forgets Dispute Over Norge Trip to Help Fellow -Flyer An Arctic drama of more, than usual intensity would be produced Roald Amundsen veteran Polar ex- plorer xplorer should go to the aid of General' Umberto Nobile, now missing in the' dirigible Italia, since there has been friction between the two igen ever since the famous fright of the Norge to the North Pole in 1926, says the Associated Press. After the flight was all over, the published memoirs of the two men showed that all had not been smooth between them, Nobile as the builder and captain of the Norge referring bo Amundsen as merely a passenger, while Amundsen accused the Italian flyer with "attempting to appropriate for Italy the last great undertaking of his life, the flight of the dirigible over the North Pole. NORGE ALSO WAS MISSING On that trip the Norge also was missing for many hours. Radio com- munication had been maintained be- tween the dirigible and land stations until the Norge crossed the Pole when no further messages were intercepted. For many hours the fate of the expe- dition was unknown and the world waited anxiously for news at length to hear that the dirigible had landed safely at the tiny village of Teller, Alaska, about ninety miles from Nome. After that air voyage Amundsen said that his exploration days were over and recounted his discovery of the Northwest Passage into the Arctic Ocean, the Northern Magnetic Pole and the South Pale. Lincoln Ellsworth, of New York, who had financed, at least in part, the two air expeditions of Captain Am- undsen, was the first to denounce Mo- bile after the Norge flight by saying that others had been responsible for the safe navigation of the dirigible from. Spitzbergen to Alaska. AMUNDSEN CRITICIZED NOB•ILE For a year Amundsen had refused to be drawn into the controversy. In that year Nobile had been promoted from colonel to general and was de- corated by the Italian government. Then Amundsen published his auto- biography and dwelt at great length on Nobila s conduct while in the air over the Pole He said that while he and Ellsworth had Iimited themselves to two tiny Norweg'an and American• flags to save weight and space, Nobile took armfuls of small Italian fags to cast into the air over the Pole and finally let lose a huge flag which, Atnundren said, threatened to tie up a propeller. • Britain to Compel Food Profiteers to Show Accounts London.—The Government has de- cided to compel merchants to disclose their accounts where food profiteer• ing is charged. Replying to questions in the House of Commons regarding the difficulty in obtaining information experienced by the Food Council, the official body commissioned to investigate prices, Stanley Baldwin, the Premier, said: "The Government is prepared to give the Food Council all the support re- quired to enable them to obtain es- sential information, and they are so informing the council. Unless, there- fore, within a reasonable period, the requisite information is supplied by those traders who have so far tailed to do so, the Government proposes to ask Parliament to grant the necessary powers.," This announcement is understood to mean that the Food Council may be armed with authority to compel the attendance of witnesses and the pro- duction of books, refusal carrying penalties of a fine and imprisonment. Indian Gave Us Maple Sugar The early settlers in Canada from tit (11_+j f ....,. er,tb�a4u 4;41, ,1;" ...w.«.. til art of Maple sugar making, an indeed followed for many years their crude methods until moderu equipment replaced the old. As a • matter at fact, until about 50 years ;ago there was little improvement on primitive Indian methods. Man in Restaurant: Give Inc 4 steak and some prohibition buns, Waitrons: I'm sorry, but we haven't any prohibition buns. Man: Yes, You have; I got some dry as.a bone here the other night; A very mean man went into a glass. wale shop in search of a preselit for g Wend, After spending some tAp looking-ifc •?aasul nrli,taa 411.r �,�• ing them too expensive, be at Iasi saw a vase which was broken in sew..;. eral pieces. Ire inquired the prioe, and, finding it was practically nothing, decided to sen dit to his friend, hoping that he would think it had been breken in the post, Accordingly, he asked the assistant to pack and dispatch. itt A few days later he •received the 014 lowing reply from his friond 1 "Thanks for the vase, So thoughtful of you t( wrap up each place separately,"